The idea about this website was first brought up in September 2011 then first discussed somewhere in Early June 2014 between xlibman and Pimathbrainiac (who later told Streetwalrus), but the project only officially started for real on October 24th 2014, under the name TI-Walrus. aeTIos and Juju joined the team immediately, although Streetwalrus would join a few days later due to lack of Internet access.

The idea was to fill empty gaps in the calculator community and make it more diverse by offering people something that had been missing for a while, most importantly the possibility to get more project visibility even if it's not based on a mainstream game genre or franchise and a stronger focus on a free of hostility atmosphere encouraging diversity. The site primarily focuses on calculator platforms such as the TI-84 Plus series (including color models), TI-Nspire, FX-9860G and HP Prime, we also cover mobile and old school game development, as well as all the artistic topics that often comes with it. The site team intends to offer an hostility-free environment towards users of any platform and programming language and to encourage new people to learn, while also making it a fun place to hang out together. We also had as mission to remain as transparent as possible as soon as the site would open to public, which is why sometimes we move topics out of the hidden staff board for public view once they are resolved and why we often discuss certain site matters publicly.

The new website name was discussed for a while after founding, with TI-Walrus, CalcWalrus and TI-Legacy being considered at first, then on November 4th, a name not specific to calculators was chosen: CodeWalrus. The domain name http://codewalr.us was then immediately registered by Juju with the help of Pimathbrainiac, who was made its official owner until Scipi took over its ownership. The plan was to keep the site private until most of the forum features become functional, then slowly let people know about the existence of this website one by one. During that time, the forums would operate like a regular mobile and calculator programming team so that we wouldn't launch an empty website to public. The site would finally open to public on New Year 2015, following a December month where more and more clues about the existence of this new TI, HP and Casio chapter of the community would unfold...

Despite being a new website, CodeWalrus has quickly risen among the most active calculator websites, while still remaining a fun place to hang out and discuss other topics of similar interest. We hope that old and new members alive enjoy their stay and stick around. If you have any suggestions and concerns about CodeWalrus, we invite you to post a topic about it in the appropriate forum section.

How to support this website?

-By participating to discussions, showcasing your projects, checking other people projects and helping them, of course! This also benefits you if you showcase your work, since you get even more visibility.

-But also you can support CodeWalrus financially. Due to high demand, we now allow donations via subscription to a CW Supporter account. Go to your Profile then click Group Memberships. There is an option to subscribe to paid groups for 1 year. You get a special badge if you do so, although there are currently no other extra benefits. This helps covering the hosting bill and future contests. Otherwise, you can also advertise on the website via Project Wonderful. xlibman also sells music on Bandcamp website (each album is set to "Pay what you want"), and although the music sales are no longer used exclusively for site funding since September 2016, they are still a way to make it considerably easier to fund future CodeWalrus contests such as the Yearly CW Project Award.

-If you like CodeWalrus, feel free to share it with your friends. You can use the following codes in other forum signatures or even your website:

<a href="https://codewalr.us"><img src="http://img.codewalr.us/codewalrus4small.png" /></a>The following userbars can also be used, depending of your member position:

And you can even use the following avatar:

List of Donators(Note that people and their donations are manually listed depending of how they donated and, in the case of direct Paypal donations, if they wish to be listed. This list might not be 100% up to date)-Adriweb-Snektron-xlibman-Phyxie-Hooloovoo-Jacobly-Jokeriske-p2-aeTIos

Official CodeWalrus Staff and Part-time maintenance Groups

Unless emergencies occur, staff will generally take decisions together in a private sub-forum, but a 24-hour limit applies to group decisions taking in order to prevent things from dragging on for months. All staff can take part in decision taking regardless of their status in the team. The team comprises staff members located in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Israel, so in general there will always be one of them available if needed. However, because all staff are busy with real life, if you need to contact them, we recommend that you contact the entire team at once via private message or via a d m i n @ c o d e w a l r . u s without the spaces (private message is faster, but requires a forum account with 5 posts). For site issues, post in the Site discussion and bug reports sub-forum.

-Server Maintenance: Full server and forum access to prevent things from breaking and getting out of date.-Forum Maintenance: In charge of adding/modifying website content. Has minimal moderator privileges (anything that doesn't involve deletions or banning).-Moderator: Full moderator privileges, including banning-Topic manager: Same as moderator, but with fewer privileges. Their primary task is keeping the forum content in order, such as moving topics in the right category, merging duplicate content, etc.

-In the (unlikely) event where an ownership transfer of the website or a merger would happen and that parts of the website or its entirety were taken down indefinitely, the original CodeWalrus staff reserves the right to put them back online at a mirror location. This clause is to ensure the preservation of CodeWalrus history in long terms.

-All the files located in CodeWalrus downloads section and CW Github repository are owned by their individual creators. This overrides the previous clause in the event where an individual author requested the removal of one or more of his files.

How to contact us?

On the forums and on EFnet #codewalrus IRC channel, of course (also available via Discord)! But should you have issues accessing those or registering a forum account, we're here to assist you if you e-mail us at admin@[siteurl] (change [siteurl] to codewalr.us, of course).